Bringing the Drama

so this weekend, i went to a crawfish boil to coincide with the NFL draft. it was great, and i must say the crawfish turned out excellent. the unique thing about crawfish boils is that after all the crawfish are laid out on the table, you carry on conversations while peeling. it is really a good feeling of community, moreso than just going to a picnic or something where everyone’s sitting at the same table. maybe it’s just a south louisiana thing, but it’s one thing i noticed again on saturday.

the draft was good, and i enjoyed seeing the golden boy, Brady Quinn, drop to pick 22. i’m sure he might be a great person and all, but the hype surrounding that guy was ridiculous. with all the talk about the NFL draft, all the talk is really true. EVERYONE pays attention to it, and at some points it is better than the super bowl. it was cool to see some clemson players get drafted this year, esp with someone going #4.

i heard that today, target would have the wii. i’ve been thinking of joining the wii-volution for about a month i guess. on the way to church this morning, i stopped by target, and they had quite a few. i figured i’d go to church, and if they still had them when i came back, i’d get one. when i went to target the 2nd time, it looked like they had only sold one out of the 15 or so that appeared to be in the case. i paged a target person, who raved about how great the Wii was, and when he was opening up the case, a lady was also looking to get one. she and i both checked out at the same time, and it seemed she had been looking for a while. i just figured i’d wait until i could comfortably go get one, because i didn’t want to sit out in line early one morning at some big store with 25 other people. anyway, so i got it home, hooked everything up, and played it. it is AWESOME! nintendo is still packing those nintendo power advertisements with their systems, which is funny, because i’ve never met anyone with a subscription to nintendo power. i guess that kind of marketing works some time though, right?

so our pal sleepy (aka ‘napoleon’, aka ‘white shoes’) fell asleep again at work today. it’s a definite pattern and more than just a couple of people are noticing. apparently he explained that he goes to sleep to think. i tell my friend brandon that it’s actually kind of exciting to go to work now, because there’s always new drama that will happen. the house of cards will fall eventually!

i was in my first telecon via computer today, in other words, i was watching some other guy’s desktop and listening over the phone. it uses some MS software, and part of it is a whiteboard that you can draw on and share with other people. we weren’t using it for the meeting today. it’s basically MS paint that both people can see. anyway, i saw it was an option during the meeting today, and wondered if anyone actually drew on it. i kind of laughed, because i wanted to, but i figured, professional people probably wouldn’t draw. so later on in the meeting, i see some guy’s drawn a portrait of some sort, with curly hair but no nose. i drew sunglasses and added some ellipse shapes, then by the end someone had added a picture of a seal, like the one below. the barrier for drawing on the telecon whiteboard has been broken by a seal with a bucket.

the past couple of weeks i’ve had these insane discussions with friends about music. i feel like they should maybe be recorded and made into a podcast or something. ‘music elitists discuss whatever…’ we could call it. how much worse could it be than some lame mtv VJ talking about how great my chemical romance is? i’m sure though that the second we set a recorder in front of ourselves, people would freeze up and it would sound like lame mtv VJs. still though, it is something to think about.

this past week i saw nickel creek twice on the first leg of their farewell for now tour. the first show was better, because it was not in a club where people got free tickets. i now have determined that the house of blues is not a place to have high expectations for bands that play acoustic based music. i just don’t think it’s possible anymore. i don’t know if it’s a society thing, but people just figure if they go to a concert, they can talk during songs and distract the band on stage. ryan adams was right, playing the HOB is like playing walmart. there are people who actually want to see the band, and then people there just wasting time, kind of like walmart. there are people who are actually shopping, but then there are also people just looking to waste time. it’s brilliant really. at the time i just laughed it off, but he’s turned into a prophet. thursday at the HOB, the security people were cracking down on people with cell phone cameras. i’ve never seen that, and i didn’t understand the point, because cell phone cameras aren’t the kind of pictures that come out well at all. this one guy in front of me took one, it came out all blurry, and next thing you know some dude in a yellow shirt is telling him to put it away.

the ryan adams mix cd thing had an awkward ending. i did make it, because at least i wouldn’t have a regret about not making it. i brought the cd to the show, but afterward, we were all tired, and the band was not coming out, plus there were a ton of people. so jacob and i walked back inside and i ended up giving the cd to mandy the merch girl, and trying to recount the story without making it sound ridiculous. the whole idea failed though, even with jacob being my wingman, and it came off incredibly awkward. i had actually talked to mandy before the show, and nothing was awkward about that, she was cool, but combined with the after effect, she probably thought i was just another crazed fan, like that girl who came up asking if the band was from north carolina. how far i fell in only a couple of hours!

the one good thing about the thursday show was that chet and i kind of bonded on the trip to and from the show though, which was an improvement from last year’s show. oh, and we still got $4 parking even though we didn’t leave till midnight. word.

oh, and i think i’m finally becoming a fan of wilco. i know that will please several of my friends, but i still think YHF is overrated, just not as much as i used to.

monday’s events in blacksburg were tough to read about and see pictures of. the first thing i thought of was the two guys i know at work who are VT grads and if they knew anyone caught in the engineering building. i tried watching the news on monday night, but couldn’t stomach more than a few minutes. in typical media fashion, they managed to sensationalize a story for their own benefit. can they be trusted with anything anymore? i saw a guy on MSNBC ask the gun shop owner “how do you feel knowing the shooter bought the guns at your store?” what are you supposed to say to that? i know what i’d say to that, and they’d have to bleep it out. then you had the people demanding answers on why the school wasn’t locked down. how exactly would you lock down an entire campus of over 20,000 people? of course, these people didn’t have an answer for that, but they sure felt they were right. then when it was revealed the nut job had sent video and writings to NBC, every media outlet showed it. how dare they even acknowledge his efforts like that! apparently they thought they should give him his due time, well fuck him. he’s dead, and he shouldn’t be allowed to have a voice, when there were 32 other people who don’t have one because of him.

a lot of schools had tributes this week, including clemson. seeing the video of the candlelight vigil at VT, where they started chanting got me choked up. i can’t think of anything else to say that doesn’t come off as just another person sending sympathy, so i’ll cut this one short. i went to college, i know what it’s like to feel like you’re a part of a bigger family, how campus is supposed to be your sanctuary away from the world, but monday just doesn’t make any sense to me. the families and friends of the victims are in my prayers.

last monday i walked the golf course at augusta national and it was a dream come true. i took a TON of pictures, but only uploaded half. i didn’t even soak it in really until the afternoon. we got there, and saw “woods” on the tee time board, and took off to catch up with the number 1 player in the world. we caught him all right, along with probably the biggest practice round gallery i’ve ever seen. it was awesome. i think one of the things i enjoyed the most was how everyone there knew golf. everyone there knew players like mike weir or john rollins. everyone kept up with the whole concept of “golf etiquette”, and it was great. as tiger was walking by us on 17, i said “who’s that guy with jj henry?” and the guy next to me laughed. that’s golf right there folks. we were standing at #16 watching some guys practice, when someone said “isn’t this where tiger chipped from a couple of years ago?” and more than one person said “yeah”. there was no riff raff, none of those guys yelling “you da man!” the players were in a great mood, and everyone was having fun out there. people were respectful of everything going on, and grown men acted like kids. the tickets are so hard to get, which makes it that much more special, and everyone there is trying to experience everything. nobody has any inhibitions about “should i ask that guy to take my picture?” almost everyone had a camera, and everyone was snapping a picture of everything. after following tiger for a few holes, we had lunch, then i walked the course over again just to see everything that i had breezed over in the morning. before i left, i hung around the practice green and watched mark o’meara and craig stadler. i almost thought about asking the lady next to me if she’d take my picture with craig stadler, and as he’s coming off the green, it ended up being his wife! i was so dumbstruck, i didn’t want to be that guy and bother them as they walked back to the clubhouse. he’s a past champion, i’ll get a picture with him next year. anyway, it was amazing and everything i thought it would be. it will definitely not be the last time i go.

watching the final round of the masters today, it was probably one of the best final rounds i’ve seen. everyone was over par because of the crazy weather, and it was playing more like a british open with the cold and the wind. to see guys actually have to make shots to separate themselves from what seemed to be a gaggle of players was great. zach johnson made some huge birdies and gained some distance between him and the other players. the commentators tried their hardest to make it “tiger inevitably will win”, but when it became apparent #5 would not come this year, the overly dramatic jim nantz pulled out every quirky fact about “the young boy from iowa who so desparately wanted to go to iowa but ended up with a golf scholarship at drake university.” anyway, i actually kind of got choked up when zach finished and was hugging his wife. i can’t imagine the feeling, of winning something like the masters, and to be sharing it with your family like that. i’d have been in tears too when the commentator interviewed me. and he represented when he said Jesus was with him when asked about how he handled the pressure. word. then he got to get the green jacket from phil mickelson. totally amazing. congrats to zach johnson, you earned it today.

they also mentioned that 6 years ago, zach went with some of his friends to the monday practice round, probably dreaming of being good enough to play in the masters, maybe win it. it all sounded really familiar. i might have to start thinking about a career change. now i have to catch up on my grad school class, the driving range time can come tomorrow.